The Candidates Speak

S urely it is unnecessary to remind Science's readers that we are in the middle of a run-up to a U.S. presidential election. They—you—have a big stake in the outcome, because even more than in 2000, science and technology issues will undergird many of the critical policy decisions of the next administration. Accordingly, as we have done before, Science 's editorial and news staffs sat down to think up the most important and challenging questions about science that we could pose to these candidates and their staffs. In mid-June, we sent the questions around to the science policy mavens in each campaign, asking that they respond by mid-August. Senator Kerry met that deadline, barely. President Bush took 3 weeks more, so we let him have an untimed exam and got longer answers. We are not going to trouble you with a point-by-point comparison of the candidates' views. But a few areas are worth some special attention, starting with the very first question, which was identical to the one asked in 2000. We asked both candidates to choose their science and technology priorities. Four years ago, candidate Bush emphasized education. This year, he emphasized bandwidth, research toward a hydrogen economy, and recruiting science and technology to fight terrorism. Candidate Kerry looked for a balanced research support portfolio, put changing stem cell policy near the top, and promised to elevate the Science Adviser position to its former status as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. The climate change query produced some interesting differences. Bush quoted sentences from a 2001 National Academy of Sciences report that indicated uncertainty about the effects of anthropogenic sources of global warming in this century, but omitted reference to the recent report from his own administration's task force that accepted the importance of those effects. He then turned to his plans for research on clean coal and hydrogen technology. By contrast, Kerry called the evidence for human involvement in global warming convincing and supported a cap-and-trade system that would resemble that in the McCain-Lieberman bill now before the U.S. Senate. In their responses on space, both candidates said good things but ducked an important choice. Bush reprised his man-Moon-Mars (3M) project and talked entirely about human exploration. Kerry praised NASA and spoke of both manned and robotic successes. But neither he nor Bush dealt realistically with costs, especially not the price tag for 3M or other manned missions, nor did they realistically approach the challenging question of which kind of space exploration produces the greater scientific yield per dollar invested. There's an interesting area of disagreement about matters of fact. Bush asserts that he holds firmly to NSDD 189, the 1985 Reagan doctrine declaring that there is no information or knowledge control mechanism short of classification. Kerry claims that instead Bush has created a murky area of “sensitive but not classified” information that is subject to control. It is to be hoped that Bush will turn out to be right on this one, but he will need to convince the Department of Commerce that it has gone “off message” by attempting to assert exactly that kind of control in university contracts. Where do we find agreement? Well, it's no surprise that both men love the National Institutes of Health budget and support this administration's record of completing its doubling from $13 billion to $27 billion. Both praise the Ocean Commission report and say they will work to follow its recommendations. They both think that foreign students are an asset to the United States and cite our long history of benefiting from such exchanges. Kerry criticizes aspects of the implementation of the visa program, whereas Bush cites surveys that show that the majority of land-grant institutions have suffered no losses in foreign applicants, but their agreement outweighs their differences. And—wonder of wonders!—both support the role of peer review and merit-based competition in allocating federal funds for research. The only difference is in how they label legislative intrusion in the process: Kerry comes right out and calls it “pork.” But in case this analysis makes them look like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, look at their answers carefully. The president and his Democratic challenger have some real differences about core scientific issues: climate change, space, stem cells, and the Endangered Species Act, among others. There's a lot of important stuff here, and it will repay careful reading.

The US presidential hopefuls' health policies

From outer space to Earth—The social significance of isolated and confined environment research in human space exploration

Becoming John Glenn in the Words of John Glenn

During the summer of 2009, a flexible path scenario for human and robotic space exploration was developed that enables frequent, measured, and publicly notable human exploration of space beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO). The formulation of this scenario was in support of the Exploration Beyond LEO subcommittee of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee that was commissioned by President Obama. Exploration mission sequences that allow humans to visit a wide number of inner solar system destinations were investigated. The scope of destinations included the Earth-Moon and Earth-Sun Lagrange points, near-Earth objects (NEOs), the Moon, and Mars and its moons. The missions examined assumed the use of Constellation Program elements along with existing launch vehicles and proposed augmentations. Additionally, robotic missions were envisioned as complements to human exploration through precursor missions, as crew emplaced scientific investigations, and as sample gathering assistants to the human crews. The focus of the flexible path approach was to gain ever-increasing operational experience through human exploration missions ranging from a few weeks to several years in duration, beginning in deep space beyond LEO and evolving to landings on the Moon and eventually Mars.

Science and human space exploration have historically developed as two entities independent from each other, where sometimes the interests of one community fight against those of the other, and where the achievements and budgets associated to human space exploration are seen as resources subtracted from science. However, science can benefit from human space exploration, and novel space missions designed on a global optimization, that balance both benefits for human space exploration and science, can constitute a new and financially sustainable approach for space exploration. The case for Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) represents a good example, as associated to NEAs there is a mix of activities that includes both science (ground and space observations, robotic space missions, advanced remote sensing) and human space exploration (and operations), along with technology development and testing. The case of NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) will be analyzed, starting with a focus on its original goals and ambitions, what it achieved, how it has been perceived from the scientific community and the industrial complex, how it evolved, and how it ended, with a final consideration on its heritage and lessons learnt.

Will the US remain the real leader of human space exploration? A comparative assessment of space exploration policies

Human space exploration is frequently judged as being one of the boldest (technical) endeavours, on which humankind has embarked in its history. It is often described with very lofty terms, especially when looking for arguments, why humans engage in human space exploration in the first place. The desire and even the necessity to go beyond the known in order to be able to grow, the wish or even the imperative to expand life into the universe, are just two arguments, which are often brought forward when discussing human space exploration. From this and similar arguments one may conclude that the focus of space exploration is not only on the scientific discovery of today’s unknown worlds. It is not just about enhancing our knowledge and understanding of the universe — how it looks today, how it developed and which laws govern its evolution. One could argue that besides these scientific achievements the attempt of the human to leave Earth and to travel into space is a manifestation of the “undefined striving into the open” as the German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg describes the seemingly untiring driving force, which motivates human action.239 Thus, human space exploration must not only be seen as an outward journey. It also needs to focus on the human being itself, as the human being appears to be at the centre of this activity. This raises the question of who the human being really is, which can be understood as a question regarding the identity of a human being.

While debate continues on whether the Moon, Mars, or Near Earth Objects should be the first or focal destination for resending humans beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO), all agree that the human space exploration needs to be sustainable and affordable, and that new and innovative technologies and infrastructure are required. One approach NASA is developing that can significantly change how systems required for space transportation and sustained human presence are designed and integrated, as well as potentially breaks our reliance on Earth supplied logistics and enable space commercialization is In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). ISRU, or “living off the land”, involves the identification, extraction, and processing of resources at the site of exploration into useful products and services. In particular, the ability to make propellants, life support consumables, fuel cell reagents, and radiation shielding can significantly reduce the cost, mass, and risk of sustained human activities beyond LEO. Also, the ability to modify planetary surface material for safer landings, lower maintenance of surface transportation, dust generation mitigation, and infrastructure protection, placement, and buildup are also extremely important for long-term planetary surface operations. At first glance, it appears that the resources available and the environmental conditions on the Moon and Mars are different enough that close synergism between lunar and Mars ISRU technologies and systems and how they are incorporated into mission scenarios is not possible. However, upon closer examination, it can be shown that there are significant synergisms in ISRU technologies, systems, and operations between the Moon and Mars. Incorporating ISRU capabilities into lunar missions and using the Moon as a test platform for future Mars missions may also significantly reduce the cost, mass, and risk for both human exploration destinations while providing a logical stepping stone approach to achieving sustainable and affordable human exploration. This paper will outline past and current technology and system development efforts by NASA for lunar and Mars ISRU, and how using the precursor missions to the Moon and Mars can reduce the cost and risk associated with human lunar and Mars exploration.

Underlying assumptions of human spaceflight in the United States

A truly international lunar base as the next logical step for human spaceflight

Goal-based operations, a form of operations that involves specifying what should be accomplished, as opposed to how operations are carried out, has the potential to significantly enhance human space exploration in a number of areas in both ground and space operations. Realizing this potential will require addressing several challenges, ranging from practical feasibility to operational reliability and user acceptance. We intend to provide a customer perspective and help address some of the challenges by: (1) highlighting general and specific challenges and opportunities that are consistent with human space exploration and that emphasize how goal-based operations might be of practical benefit to the human space exploration program; and (2) exploring ways to help increase confidence in goal-based operations. A strategy for building such confidence must consider: (a) incremental implementation of goal-based operations for increasingly ambitious operations leading eventually to high level goal-based operations, (b) the role of systems modeling in technology acceptance and infusion and (c) automation assessment tools for understanding how trust is developed, such as the Function-specific Level of Autonomy and Automation Tool (FLOAAT) developed by NASA/Johnson Space Center. We explore several challenges and opportunities for the near-term (International Space Station mission operations), the midterm (human lunar missions), and the long-term (human Mars missions), that illustrate the potential benefits of goal-based operations.

Multidisciplinary evaluation of next steps for human space exploration: Technical and strategic analysis of options

The first report, which represents the administration's task force's views, contains numerous recommendations. These recommendations address actions to be taken by the NTIA and other government agencies. That is, this report addresses continued government control of, and management of, the use of spectrum resources. There are no recommendations in this report that users obtain rights in spectrum, or that markets for spectrum be developed.The second report, which is based in part upon views of "the private sector developed through the public meetings and written comments submitted to the Department of Commerce", does reference limited rights and markets.It recommends first that "The Administration should continue to encourage Congress to enact legislation that provides the FCC with permanent authority to conduct spectrum auctions for licenses and to collect fees for spectrum use. This proposed legislation would support incentives for efficient use of the spectrum. The Administration should also continue to support legislation that would establish a spectrum relocation fund that would streamline the process for reimbursing government spectrum users to facilitate their relocation to comparable spectrum." This is recommendation 5(a). (This is a reference to HR 1320. The House passed its version of HR 1320 on June 11, 2003.)The second report continues that "Once enacted into law, the FCC and NTIA should use the statutory authorities described in (a) to develop increased economic incentives for efficient spectrum use. In addition to market-based incentives, like auctions and lease fees, the FCC should consider expanding the application of secondary markets across services."Finally, the second report recommends that "NTIA, in conjunction with the FCC should, through appropriate rulemaking processes, examine the possibility of modifying spectrum rights as a means to encourage the deployment of spectrally efficient technologies. These rulemakings should consider, among other things: (i) granting access to new bands of spectrum to users deploying demonstrably non-interfering technology; and (ii) limiting the interference protection afforded to incumbents using inefficient technologies.

<div class="htmlview paragraph">This paper briefly outlines the nature of the current crashworthiness requirements contained in the United States airworthiness standards, with primary emphasis on those for fixed-wing airplanes. The authority for and origin of such requirements is traced. Special attention is focused on the recommendations of the Federal Aviation Administration's Task Force for Crashworthiness and Emergency Evacuation. During the past two years this team has studied the subject intensively. An indication is provided of trends for improved means to cope with occupant protection in a survivable crash environment. This includes protection against serious injury in the event of damaging ground impact as well as the rapid, safe evacuation of the airplane's occupants. An indication is also given of areas wherein further regulatory action is proposed to amend the transport category requirements. Also discussed are actions to improve the level of safety of future air-taxi airplanes.</div>